(Full review to come.)

Summary:  The narrative of The Day of the Triffids follows Bill Masen, a biologist who is in the hospital after receiving a sting from one of the invasive giant plants that have appeared all around the worlds: triffids. Waking up in the hospital, Bill discovers that he is one of the few people in the world who can see after a meteor shower mysteriously blinds everyone who watched it. As the world descends further and further into chaos, with systems and institutions failing overnight and people turning on each other, Bill develops a bond with novelist Josella which will be tested as the worsening situation separates them. To make things even more dire, Bill starts to realise that the chaos of the human world has had an unexpected consequence: the triffids are starting to takeover in a way that appears organised.

Overall Thoughts:  Despite having heard a lot about The Day of the Triffids, I really had little idea of what the novel was actually about. I was expecting something similar to The War of the Worlds but the initial chapters, depicting Bill’s growing realisation about the blindness of those around him, included some extremely dark moments that took me by surprise. In those opening chapters, Wyndham successfully sets the stakes of the events unfolding around Bill: society has completely broken down with brutally deadly consequences. This was an gripping, tense narrative which very much felt as though it could be set in any twentieth and twenty-first century era. I would definitely recommend this for those who enjoy science-fiction and dystopian novels, particularly those who have an interest in classic science-fiction. Overall,  I was glad to have read The Day of the Triffids and I was definitely surprised by how much I enjoyed it.